In these essays, students reflect upon the study of radical religious groups, including qualitative data analysis of video interviews, through an upper level course at Miami University.

As children grow older, they often begin to differ from how parents expect them to be. Whether they choose to differ politically, religiously, or make an uncanny career path for themselves, it can be hard to believe that a person we have cared for and known for so long can choose against what they have been taught, but it is a common occurrence. Ideologies and beliefs change as people gain more experience in the world and are exposed to different people and cultures. Almost everybody can think of someone who has changed drastically from the way they were brought up. In fact, a 2015 study of American religious identification, the Pew Research Center found that 42% of Americans identify in a religious group that is different from what they practiced in childhood. In situations represented by this data, it can be hard to understand why a loved one would leave what was once agreed upon by the family. This affects many American families, including those of the Westboro Baptist Church. 

Known for their anti-homosexual picketing and protesting of veteran funerals, the Westboro Baptist Church is a small congregation consisting of just a few families. The tight-knit group that is the Westboro Baptist Church places faith as priority over family.  Here, changing one’s religious beliefs does not simply lead to awkward thanksgiving meals like others, rather it means a complete separation from the familial community they have been with their whole life. Them having beliefs and rituals considered oppositional to the larger American population, it is easy for outsiders to imagine a desire to distance oneself from this group, and there have been some notable cases of this happening among their community. For example, you might have heard names like Sharon Phelps and Lauren Drain in the past, as they have gained some press writing personal memoirs after leaving the Westboro Baptist Church. 

I drew my attention of Westboro through the project named “Empathy and the Religious Enemy,” headed by Miami University assistant professor Dr. Hillel Gray aims to study the emotions and empathy of members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas in a critically empathic, non-judgmental way. By this, the project aims not to change a person’s religious beliefs or condemn their behavior, but to understand their personhood in a way that allows ourselves to be more empathic. This study conducts interviews of various members of the Church with emphasis on the empathic capabilities they employ. Through a university class with Dr. Gray, I have been able to access the interviews and produce a qualitative analysis of the emotions of grief and loss felt by church members in response to family members leaving the church.

Looking over the interviews produced through the project, I came across a section of a 2010 interview with Tim, Lee Ann, and Victoria Phelps. Victoria, who was seventeen years old at the time, gives her thoughts on the departure of her brother from the church, which occurred just weeks before the interview took place. Victoria expresses her inability to understand why her brother would leave the Westboro community considering their shared upbringing. She states that “you have everything here, what more do you want,” and continues to wonder at how her brother could leave after taking the teachings of the church to be true. This was interesting to me because it is her upbringing in the church and her allegiance to the religious doctrine that prevents her from comprehending possible motivations for leaving. There is an urgency to her words as she details the consequences she perceives of her brother’s actions, that he will be sent to hell for eternity. This is something, I think, which is present in all of us to an extent. Religions, political opinions, and other ideologies are so engrained in our thinking that it becomes hard, and sometimes impossible to comprehend otherwise. Like Victoria, many of us respond with confusion and in some cases, anger when faced with a loved one’s dramatic change. 

In a way, I think one of the goals of Dr. Gray’s project is to reflect on these things. Encountering these materials has caused me to question how I privilege my own thinking and impulses. It is much easier for me to see the blockages that an ideology can place on one’s mind when seeing it in an oppositional group like Westboro, but further self-reflection reveals that I am the same way. As someone who has seen a loved one struggle with religious identity, I find myself in the same position as Victoria was. Though I do not conclude that one or another person is necessarily destined for hell, it is important to understand that people grow and find new ways of being in the world, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. With our initial emotions being somewhat beyond our control, we can supplement that with critical reflection and questioning ourselves, such as “why do I feel the way I do” or “am I angry at this person and how can I be more accepting.” Victoria shows her own way of doing this as she attributes all things to a divine plan. I do not mean to say that Victoria or anyone else is wrong for her reactions and feelings, but that her expression is something we all take part in, and awareness of those emotions is something valuable.